


Stranger Nation

by StrangerZ



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016), Z Nation (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Billy Got Adopted by Kali's Gang, Billy Hargrove Lives, Crossover, Established Relationship, Everyone grew up, F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M, Multi, Other, The Upside Down, They survived the 80s and 90s only to deal with the Zombie Apocalypse instead of retiring
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-16
Updated: 2020-04-16
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:33:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23585419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StrangerZ/pseuds/StrangerZ
Summary: Back in the 80s, strange things happened in Hawkins. Things never really got back to normal, but the trials of their youth gave them a fighting edge when it came to the zombie apocalypse. They're not kids anymore but they've still got a lot of fight in them. Also, El and Kali have their superpowers, so they have that going for them.
Relationships: Axel/ Billy Hargrove/ Funshine, Axel/Billy Hargrove, Dottie/Mick (Stranger Things), Dustin Henderson/Suzie, Eleven | Jane Hopper/ Mike Wheeler/ Will Byers, Jonathan Byers/Steve Harrington/Nancy Wheeler, Joyce Byers/Jim "Chief" Hopper, Maxine "Max" Mayfield/Lucas Sinclair, Robin Buckley/Kali Prasad
Kudos: 1





	Stranger Nation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No dialogue, just some narration hanging out in El's headspace to lay out the setting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The 80s was a long time ago and the characters from Stranger Things would range between the kids being in their 40s to Hopper being in his mid-70s. The end notes contain characters age ranges at the start of the fic.

Things had been pretty quiet in Hawkins in the early twenty-tens. During the eighties and well into the nineties there had been quite a bit of trouble with the Upside Down, but it had died down over the years as Eleven grew into her powers.

It helped that she had gotten in touch with her super-powered 'siblings' - they all lead their own lives but they kept in contact.

Friendly. She liked it that way. If anything went wrong, they had each other. It worked out.

They'd gotten used to the occasional upheaval, and worked together to defend Hawkins and the world against the Upside Down. For a while, there was nothing from the Upside Down. For years. They stayed on guard, but it seemed like things were finally over. 

Until _everything_ went wrong. 

At first they thought it was something to do with the Upside Down. Some new horror it had unleashed. They'd wasted valuable time trying to shut down a gate that hadn't opened. People died. People they'd loved, people they'd hated, people they'd known their entire lives.

Not all of them had entirely given up hope that they could end all this the way they'd ended every other disaster up to this point; with some hard work, a lot of derring-do, and a touch of luck. They still wanted to make it all go away like they could do with the Upside Down messes.

They'd pulled it together before the end of black summer. 

El had called in her siblings she had found over the years, and together they defended the survivors of Hawkins.

After a few years, they found a new normal. They could defend themselves against Zs. They'd survive this, too. It was a new type of terrible but one-on-one they were easier to deal with than the denizens of the Upside Down. They gathered the survivors to the high school, cleared Hawkins of Zs, and went to work at fortifying the town.

They had a few designated safe zones like the schools, and a few places they fortified 'just in case' like Hawkins lab. The idea of having to fight Zs and whatever fresh horror the Upside Down could throw at them was enough to keep it clear of the dead. They turned the storefronts on main street into free community stores and filled them with the loot they found in the remains of the nearby malls and the houses of the dead.

In time, Eleven had made Hawkin's lab her personal base. It still felt strange, but strange felt like home to her now. The glass on the lower levels had been reinforced with poured concrete. Dustin and Suzie had set up a radio for her to contact everyone, so she didn't have to reach out to them with her mind unless they went out of range of the signal. That had yet to happen. The Henderson's were good at what they did.

Nancy, Steve, and Jon organized the human side of things. Together they kept people busy, they kept them safe, they gave them _hope_. The survivors of Hawkins trusted the trio. Steve was charismatic, Nancy was brilliant, and Jonathan knew people. He watched people, understood how they worked, what they needed, what they wanted. His work was more behind the scenes than his lovers, but he seemed to like it better that way.

He was like El, he didn't know what to say, he said things wrong when he was faced with a crowd and they misunderstood everything. No, it was better to tell Nancy and Steve what was necessary and them to make it into something people would dedicate themselves towards.

El still wasn't that great with words, though she knew she'd improved. Hawkins still thought of her as Hopper's weird kid, even well into her forties. As for Hopper, he'd aged like leather. He'd gotten lean, tougher with age. He had his aches and pains, and that made him grumpier, but he had Joyce, and she kept him from getting too cranky. 

Joyce had organized the 'grandma brigade' although it technically included grandpas too, as well as oldtimers that never married or had kids. They had charge of the elementary school which they'd converted into a home for themselves and the orphaned children of Hawkins, as well as their own grandchildren.

The high school had become something like a barracks, or at least that's what Hopper called it. They'd divided everyone into to teams who had each others' backs. Most of them stuck to defending the town, but some of them went out into the world. Some of them brought back supplies, some brought back survivors, some disappeared without a trace. 

She wasn't numb to that, but loss wasn't new to her either. 

She wasn't their leader, but she was in charge of defense all the same.

Will, Suzie, and Dustin stayed with her in the lab. Dustin said they were her science team, and they talked about things she didn't fully understand. They'd all gotten doctorates in their fields, though Will didn't insist on being called Dr Byers. Dustin did insist on being called Dr Henderson because he thought that was cool, but Suzie insisted on being called Ms Henderson. Ms, not Mrs, and Dustin thought that was cool, too.

Sometimes Lucas and Mike joined them, but mostly Mike and Lucas spent their time with Max and Erica scouting the immediate area outside fortified Hawkins. If things were bad, they contacted Eleven for backup. If things were _really_ bad, she contacted her sibs for backup. All in all, she felt okay.

Things were bad, but she was used to bad things. She had her friends, and they had her.

They were going to make this work, somehow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Character age ranges in 2018**  
>  Teens – 10K  
> 20s – Addy, Mack, Cassandra  
> 30s – Warren, Garnett, Citizen Z, Doc's son  
> 40s – Murphy, Eleven, Will, Lucas, Erica, Max, Dustin, Mike, Suzie  
> 50s – Doc, Jonathan, Steve, Nancy, Robin, Kali, Billy, Kali's friends  
> 60s – Joyce  
> 70s – Hopper


End file.
